Back to the Start
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: Kurt takes Jane to visit Emma Shaw's grave. For BShiatusfics week 6 prompt "gravestone."


The trip had been long, longer than any Jane had ever taken, but they were finally there. Here. In Clearfield.

Jane stared out the windows as Kurt drove them out of the capital of the state and began heading north, and west, on a twisting route towards his hometown. _Their_ hometown, if the DNA test Patterson had shown them the other week had been correct. And it had to have been correct.

That's what Jane kept telling herself, at least. Because if she wasn't Taylor Shaw, if she wasn't who the DNA test said she was and she wasn't who Kurt wanted her so badly to be, than who was she?

 _No one_.

The words echoed in her head as if someone had shouted them at her, and she closed her eyes against the noise, blocking out the trees rushing past her window for a moment. But it didn't help. The words echoed and grew: _You're no one; you're no one; you're no one_ —

Until she finally reached over and turned on the radio, just so she could hear something besides her own judgment. Kurt jumped a bit at the sound, glancing over at her. For the last half-hour, they'd been driving in silence, just like how they'd spent the three previous hours flying in silence, and she felt a twinge of guilt at surprising him. He was the one in control of a thousand-pound speeding piece of metal; she shouldn't startle him.

"Sorry," she muttered, turning down the radio a bit, trying to find a softer station than the loud teenage rock she'd stumbled upon.

"It's fine," he replied. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him glancing over at her, and she waited for whatever it was he was going to say. But he said nothing. They drove the next hour and a half in silence, with just the sound of soft country music accompanying them.

When they passed the exit sign for Clearfield, and Kurt turned the car into the right lane, Jane felt her stomach clench in worry. It had been different, when they'd bought plane tickets and picked up the rental car, and started driving. It hadn't exactly been real. But now that they were pulling off the highway, now that they were driving right into Clearfield, they were going to go back—

"Could we stop and get some food first?" Jane blurted, turning quickly to find his eye. "I'm just—I'm starving," she excused quickly, ignoring the confusion in his eyes.

"Sure," he answered easily, even though they'd eaten a full lunch only two hours ago, after they'd gotten off the plane. "What do you want to eat?"

 _Nothing_ , Jane thought. _I just want to go back to New York. Take me back to New York._

"Do they have Chinese food here?" she asked instead, latching onto the one familiar thing she could think of in the face of all this strangeness.

For the first time today, Kurt cracked a smile at her side. "Believe it or not, Chinese food _does_ exist in central Pennsylvania." He laughed then, and Jane did too, weakly, not sure she got the joke but not wanting him to know regardless.

He found a parking place in town easily; the place seemed somewhat deserted, and Jane found herself looking around nervously, as if it were a true ghost town, and all the unknowns from her past were about to rush her.

"Clearfield was never a city," Kurt said, noticing the worry on her face, "but the place wasn't always this empty, either. There were more people when we were kids." He frowned, "Or, it felt like there were, at least."

Jane nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. She was still fixating on that _we_ , on the way he paired the two of them together thoughtlessly, and trying to imagine this place twenty years ago. Had she really walked down these streets as a child? Had she played in the parks, gone to the schools, been best friends with the boy next door?

Had any of that happened to her at all?

Or was he projecting someone else's past onto her, because he'd been waiting so long, and she had proven a likely candidate?

They didn't speak much, or eat much, in the little Chinese restaurant. It was run by, from what Jane had seen of passersby, the only Asian family in town. It's odd, she thought, as she found her focus shifting more to the people around her than the food in front of her. She had spent all the time she can remember in New York City, surrounded by people of every color and almost every nationality. She couldn't help but wonder, what it would have been like, to grow up here around all these other people that must've looked just like her. Had she felt at home here? She had to have; why wouldn't she?

But the unfamiliarity of everything around her, the stare from the waitress when she rolled up her sleeves and saw her tattoos, and the quiet expectation she could feel rolling off Kurt, still made her wonder. If she had really grown up here, surely she would remember _something_. A street sign, a building, anything. Something would be familiar, catch her eye, trigger her memory.

That was how things had been working recently, at least. It didn't happen often, but every once in a while she'd do something, or see something, and then she'd remember. Just snippets. Small things—faces, voices, words, a view. Nothing to piece together an identity from—but enough to maybe start.

That's why they came here in the first place. When the first couple memories had started surfacing, she'd gone to Borden for advice. He'd suggested not thinking too hard about it—as if that were possible—and to let it all happen naturally—as if anything were natural to her at this point—and, eventually, he'd suggested maybe a walk down memory lane would help force more of the memories into the forefront of her mind.

Kurt had been the one to suggest a trip to Clearfield. And now here they were.

"Think you're ready now?"

Jane looked up when she heard him speak, meeting his inscrutable eyes across the table. She couldn't tell what he was: Worried? Excited? Bored? Taking a brief look down at her half-eaten food, Jane nodded, not feeling the need to even pretend to finish it. They'd both ended up getting soup and an appetizer, and though neither had been very hungry, they'd done their best to pick at things. Jane had eaten mostly so she wouldn't seem rude to the restaurant-owners. She and Kurt were the only customers in the place, this early in the afternoon, and she felt bad taking up their time and hardly eating their food.

But she nodded to Kurt's question anyway, and pushed her barely-touched plate aside while he paid the check. It had been a waste of food, of money, of time, and she knew she should regret it. But even that short reprieve, before diving head first into the past, had helped. Already, she felt less panicky, and more able to face whatever it was that they were going to face.

And besides, she remembered as Kurt held the door for her on the way out, she wasn't alone here. He'd be with her the whole time. And if she tried hard enough, maybe she could forget that he came here with an agenda, too.

"Where to first?" he asked once they were outside. It was October—not too cold yet, but the wind was kicking up. He put his back to the bluster, and she did the same, coming to his side. "Did you want to see the house? Or go and see your mom?"

 _Your mom._

Jane was glad she had the excuse of hard winds to duck her head away from him, and put off answering for a moment. It still threw her off, to hear him talk about things like that. To talk about _her_ like that.

 _Your mom..._

So she thought about the house instead. He had mentioned, on the way over, that they could take a look at it. The visit didn't have to be solely about visiting Emma Shaw's grave, or wandering around Clearfield. They could go right back to the place she came from. Right back to the beginning.

"But someone else lives there now, right?" Jane couldn't help but ask, once the wind had died down. "That's someone else's house?"

Kurt nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it was sold. But I'm sure if we explained things..." He trailed off, leaving the decision up to her.

She didn't particularly feel like wandering around in a stranger's home, no matter if it used to be hers or not. There were certain things that lost their relevance after a while, and what would that home be to her, without her family in it? Without their furniture, their pictures, their things scattered around, even their paint on the walls? Would any of it be familiar, any of it worth it?

"Let's just go to the cemetery," she answered finally, and Kurt led the way back to the car.

The place where Emma Shaw was buried was about fifteen minutes outside of town, in a large cemetery that, from what Jane could tell, wasn't associated with any specific religion. There wasn't a church attached, at least, though Jane supposed that didn't mean much. Surely there were believers buried here, alongside nonbelievers. Surely there was a spot for everyone—maybe even her. When I die, Jane couldn't help but wonder, will they bury me here, with my maybe-mother?

She glanced over at Kurt as they walked down the thin strip of pavement separating the different lawns, wondering. Surely he would take care of her funeral arrangements, if she were to die in the field or somewhere else. She could guess he'd probably put her here—if not because he saw her as Taylor, then because there was simply no other place to put her. No other place she had even the most tenuous tie to.

She wondered what her gravestone would read. Would it feature two names? Would it only have a death date? Or would it say nothing at all; would it be a blank slate just like she was?

"She's, um, right down there. On the right."

Kurt stopped at the edge of one of the rows, standing to the side so Jane, apparently, could pass by first. She did so carefully, eyeing him, wondering why he thought she should go first. Was he going to stay here, and let her look at the grave alone? Did he really think she needed that much privacy with a woman she could not remember and might never have known?

Jane walked down the grassy aisle he pointed out, keeping her head tilted to the right to read each headstone that went by. There was a Jacobson, two Horowitzes, a Lance, a Paulson...

And then Emma Shaw. Right there, sitting between Bethany Paulson, _Dearly missed mother and grandmother_ , and Roger Everett, _Beloved Husband_.

Jane blinked at the gravestone. It was beautiful, in that only something as morbid as a gravestone could be: sturdy, simple, expertly carved, and perfectly polished. The stone was made of some kind of red granite that was so dark it almost looked purple. The script was plain, straightforward: block letters for her name, numerals for the birth and death dates, and then at the bottom, in soft, elegant cursive: _Loving mother._

Jane felt her throat grow a little tight at the epithet, wondering if it was true. Had Emma Shaw been her mother, and a loving one at that? She waited—hoped—for the memories to rush her, but there was nothing. Just the dull grass spread out for acres, the hundreds of tombstones going on and on to the edge of her vision in every direction, the chill of the day settling more fully around her. There was nothing and no one else here, not even a groundskeeper. She could stand here for hours, looking at that grave, waiting to remember, and never be disturbed. But she wasn't really sure she wanted to.

"I don't know what to say," she whispered aloud, as much to the gravestone as to herself. "I don't remember anything about you."

She glanced to her right, but Kurt was still standing at the far edge of the row, apparently intent on giving her privacy. He'd even turned his back. She wondered, watching him, if he expected some great outpouring of emotion, some great revelation. Did he think she'd burst into tears, and finally remember it all? Did he think she'd fall to her knees and beat at the ground at the injustice of it?

She turned back to the grave, pulling her coat a little closer against the wind. She tried to think of something else to say, something meaningful, something important. But nothing came.

"Kurt said you were a great mom," she said finally, sucking in a breath. "And...if I was your daughter, I guess I should say thanks. I know you thought you probably got me killed, when I disappeared, but I'm still here. Still alive. Not really cognizant of my life, or the world, or what happened, but..." She shrugged. "I'm still here anyway," she sighed, and for the first time, she wondered if that meant anything. What was she supposed to do with this blank life she was given? Figure out the tattoos, yes, but after that? In between doing that? How was she supposed to learn how to live, to be a real person like everyone else?

It would be nice to have a mother, she thought. Nice to have a guide in life.

She didn't say that part out loud. It felt like blaming her maybe-mother for dying, and that didn't seem like a kind thing to do, when you were visiting her grave for the first time. So instead she just stood there, staring at the lovely tombstone, and wondered. About her potential childhood. Adolescence. Adult life, before it had been erased. Was she ever going to remember anything concrete?

By the time Kurt finally came wandering over, she was sitting beside the grave, leaning her side against it. She didn't much feel like staring at the letters anymore, but she didn't exactly feel like leaving, either. What else was there to do, in this ghost town she hardly remembered? At least she had one maybe-real tie to this place, this person.

Kurt didn't question it. He just sat down with her, on the other side of Emma Shaw's grave, and waited. For a few minutes, neither of them said anything. The wind rose and fell, scattering the dead leaves from a few trees planted throughout the cemetery. Jane caught one in her hand and slowly tore it to pieces. Kurt fiddled with a loose button his coat.

"It's a nice headstone," Jane said finally, just for something to say.

"Mm." Kurt nodded quietly.

Jane looked at him over the high slope of the polished granite, searching for his eye, but he didn't look up.

"You did this, didn't you?" she asked aloud, even though she knew the answer already.

On the other side of the grave, Kurt shrugged, his head still tilted towards the ground. "She was a good person," he said, in lieu of answering. "She deserved a nice grave."

Jane nodded along, but didn't press further. Instead, she wondered, privately, how much this had cost. What he'd had to forego, to purchase this carved hunk of rock for a dead woman. She found herself wondering if Kurt paid for all the funeral arrangements, too, or if Emma Shaw had seen to that all before she'd passed. She wondered what the funeral had been like. Had Kurt and his sister been the only ones in attendance? Had it rained, had the sun shined? Had they cried?

"I should've brought flowers or something," Jane whispered, realizing too late that she had nowhere near anything as nice to offer Emma Shaw as what Kurt had.

But he didn't seem concerned. "You coming is probably enough," he said.

Jane tried to believe that. Tried with her whole head, her whole heart, her whole being. But there was still that nagging in the back of her mind... If this was real, if this was fake... If she was reaching out to a woman that had no idea who she was...

"I don't think... Kurt, I don't think I'm ever going to remember any of this. I tried, but..." Throat suddenly tight again, she swallowed, but that made it worse. "I don't know how to do this," she whispered. "I don't know how to go back to being who I was before, if I even _was_ this person. I don't know..." She could barely say the words aloud, and could not even dream of meeting his eye as she forced them out: "I don't know if I want to."

There. She'd said it. The truth that had been eating at her ever since Patterson had told them of the DNA results, ever since Kurt had been bombarding her with memory after memory, hoping one would stick and bring her— _her_ —back to him.

She'd said it. Finally.

So why didn't it make her feel any better?

She drew her knees to her chest, suddenly frozen on the inside despite the fact that the temperature outside hadn't dropped at all. She wrapped her arms tight around her legs, forcing herself to keep it together, to stay sane—

But a gasp broke through her lips, and then her tight throat became unbearably painful, and she didn't even know why, but she could feel tears sting her eyes. She pressed her face tight against her knees, hoping to hide all evidence, but she knew better than try to fool Kurt. Ninety percent of his job relied on him being extremely observant. He could've been standing on the other end of the cemetery, and he would've been able to tell she was crying.

"Hey..." His voice was low, soft, strained. He didn't know what to do, what to say, and she didn't blame him. It isn't often she allowed herself to break down crying in front of him for no discernible reason. "Jane, it's okay..."

"It's not," she interrupted when she had breath. "It's not okay, because I'm here, I'm finally here, and I feel nothing! I _remember_ nothing!" She turned her head, finding his worried eyes over the top of Emma Shaw's headstone. "What am I doing here?" she cried out, all but begging for a verifiable answer. "What is the point? Nothing's coming back!"

"We haven't been here long, Jane, you don't know—you might remember something—"

"And if I don't? If we stay here all day, and nothing comes back to me..." Her chin started to shake. "What am I supposed to do, who am I supposed to be, if I'm not her? What else is there for me?"

"I..." Kurt looked just as scared as she felt, just as lost and confused, and it made her feel guilty all over again. This was hard enough on him, surely. Why did she need to attack him like this with all her fears? Why couldn't she just hold herself together? It wasn't his job to baby her.

"Look, Jane..." Kurt moved around the grave to sit in front of her. She did her best to wipe her face and compose herself before he sat down. "I don't know who you're supposed to be," he answered finally, and the words brought a fresh wave of tears to her eyes, even though he was just telling the truth they'd known since day one. Seeing that, he reached out and gripped her hand tight. She relished for a moment in the feel of him; he'd always been better with physical comfort than verbal. At least with her. She clutched his hand tight, desperate for anything familiar, anything known. "I don't know who you're supposed to be or what you're supposed to do, Jane. I'm as lost as you are with all this, okay, but—" He tried a smile, moving close enough so their legs touched. "But we'll figure it out, okay? One way or another..."

"I don't feel like her," Jane whispered, not able to give into his platitudes so readily. She knew they were well-meant, but she didn't need well-meaning right now. She needed someone to tell her that it was okay that she was nameless, homeless, nothing. But who could say that?

"I don't feel like her, Kurt, and I've tried, but... But it just isn't working. I don't feel anything. What am I supposed to do?"

"Whatever you want," he answered, and the sincerity in his voice made her stop and stare for a moment. He smiled a little, hopeful, when he caught her eye. "You can do whatever you want, Jane. I know... I know that losing your life must've been terrible. Honestly, I can't imagine starting from scratch the way you have, but... Even if nothing comes back, you can figure something out for yourself. You don't have to be Taylor or anyone else, you can just be Jane. Just Jane." He brushed his thumb against her hand; it was warm against the cold. "Is that enough?" he asked quietly, his blue eyes gauging hers.

 _Is it enough for you?_ she almost asked.

She stared at him, sitting in front of her, legs pressed against hers, face hardly a foot away, and she wondered. He was still eyeing her earnestly, still waiting for an answer, but she didn't have one to give. Because the longer they spent time together, the more she began to think that her answer to his question relied on his answer to hers.

Because things had been different between them, these past few weeks. She had sensed it; the others had, too. He had been moving closer, either knowingly or unknowingly, and she, not knowing what to do, had just stood still and let it happen. She'd let him get closer and closer until—now, here he was, just a foot from her.

 _He's close enough to kiss,_ some mad part of her brain realized, and then her cheeks were too warm for the cold and his hand was so much heavier on hers than it had been a moment ago. She blinked, but he didn't move, and the feeling didn't go away.

"Is that enough for you, just being Jane?" he asked, still waiting for an answer. "Because I want it to be, for your sake, but if it's not..." He swallowed, his eyes glancing away from her for a moment to linger on the headstone beside time, and then returning. "I can tell you everything you want to know about her, or about Taylor, if you want. If you think it will help, I can tell you."

"Do _you_ think it will help?"

She hadn't meant for the words to get out, hadn't meant to give him that opportunity—but there it was. After so many weeks of having the ball in her court, she'd shoved it at him, out of nowhere, and asked one of the few questions she really cared about: Did he want her to be Taylor or didn't he? What part of her was he becoming attracted to, the mystery woman, or the long-lost childhood friend? If she chose one over the other, would she lose him? Herself?

At this point, she didn't even know what mattered more.

He blinked a moment, thinking on her question. _Do you think it will help?_ He didn't have an honest answer. He didn't know. And he figured that was best to just say outright.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, his eyes briefly rising to hers. "I'm not sure what will help and what won't. If you're her... If you're not her..." He shrugged, sighing in quiet disbelief. "I don't know, honestly. I don't know what to do."

"But you invited me here," Jane pointed out. "You had to have thought..."

"I was thinking I wanted to bring you home," he answered quietly, picking up where she left off with an honesty that quite literally took her breath away. "I was thinking... I was thinking, if I brought you here, you'd finally have something. You'd have a hometown and a family and a house. I know some of those things are gone now, but... But it'd be something," he finished finally, dropping his gaze back to Emma Shaw's gravestone. "Even if you're not Taylor," he said quietly, "this place can still be your home. Emma can still be your mother. It can all just stand in, until you find a place you've made your own..."

"And what about you?"

Kurt stared. "What about me?"

"When you look at me, who do you see?"

For a couple seconds, she watched as he opened and closed his mouth, but never got a word out. She was going to tell him to forget it, was going to say that they could leave and do something else, but then he spoke.

"I see a friend," he answered finally. "A friend who doesn't know who she is, and is trying to find out. I see someone who deserves to know her place in the world, and to feel at home there." The grip of his hand tightened around hers. "I see someone that I want to help, however I can."

Jane smiled a little at his genuineness, and squeezed his hand back. Even though he hadn't given her a yes-or-no answer, it was still a good answer nonetheless.

"If you are Taylor, Jane, then you'll find her again. I believe that. If you're her, you'll figure it out. It will happen. But if you're not, or if you're not sure..." He shrugged. "Then just be Jane. Until you figure out someone else to be, why not just be who you are right now?" For a moment, a flicker of happiness entered his eyes. "I like you the way you are," he said quietly.

Jane couldn't help but grin. "Yeah? You do?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." His smile widened. "Besides, if I didn't, I might run the risk of you beating me up. I've seen you tackle guys twice your size to the ground; I don't want to get added to the list."

Jane laughed at that, and allowed all the worry and the tension and the fear to dissipate into the air with it. She truly appreciated that about Kurt—that ability of his to make even the firmest of her fears crumble away with just a moment or two of kindness. He had a gift, she thought, for being a good person. And whether she will become Taylor or she will stays Jane, she knew she'd always remain grateful for being able to spend this time with him.

* * *

 **A/N** : I'm finally feeling like I'm getting back into the swing of things with these two. Let me know what you thought! :)


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